


kyungsoo's bench

by dimpledjaehyun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Cute, Cute Ending, Cute Kids, Fluff, I tried?, Kids!Kaisoo, M/M, Oneshot, word vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:33:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimpledjaehyun/pseuds/dimpledjaehyun
Summary: Jongin decides he wants to befriend the lonely kid who sits on that dumb bench during recess.





	kyungsoo's bench

**Author's Note:**

> it's word vomit but it's cute??

The first time Jongin met Kyungsoo, he was in kindergarten.

Being the happy-go-lucky kid he was, he’d managed to make friends quickly. There was this elf-eared kid named Chanyeol with huge eyes and chubby hands that happened to live two houses away from him, as well as Jongdae, a short troublemaker with a Cheshire cat’s smile that seemed to be permanently plastered on his face.

Jongin felt rather content with just playing his small circle of friends and being acquainted with everyone else. Jongdae, on the other hand—Jongdae’s mouth wouldn’t stop moving. Everywhere he went, he would spew nonsense at other kids and somehow wind up befriending them. The smirking little brat was pretty much friendly with every person at school by the time three weeks had passed.

There was one boy that he didn’t befriend, though—which Jongin found rather strange, because Jongdae was open to talking to even the meanest bullies on campus. The boy didn’t seem all that bad; all he did was sit at a bench under the tree that was distanced from the school playground at recess. He was small and short and wore a different Pororo shirt every single day. He had closely-cropped hair and milky skin that wasn’t all scraped up and bruised like Jongin’s (probably because he wasn’t clumsy and didn’t really move from that dumb bench). He had heart-shaped lips, a round head and even rounder eyes. Jongin hadn’t seen anyone with such large eyes before—he’d been trying to make eye contact with the boy for five days and was disappointed because he hadn’t yet. 

“Why’re you always staring at that kid?” Jongdae inquired during lunchtime, his mouth stuffed with his fluffy ham-and-egg sandwich.

“Why aren’t you friends with him, Jongdae?” Jongin asked distractedly. He was hanging off his seat like a monkey with his head turned upside down, trying to catch the boy’s attention. The round-eyed kid was sitting alone on that bench again, looking depressed and lonely and badly in need of a big warm hug.

“Oh, because he told me to shut up and go away,” Jongdae sniffed, shooting daggers at the kid in the distance. 

“Yeah,” Chanyeol chimed in, stabbing his avocado with his fork. “I tried to sit next to him, but he shoved me off the bench. He’s a bad guy, Nini.” 

“It’s true, I was the bench,” Jongdae confirmed. “You gotta stay away from him, okay?”

“What’s his name?” Jongin asked. 

“Nini, were you even listening to what I just said?” Jongdae rolled his eyes. (Rolling your eyes was cool, he said.) 

“Well, what’s his name?” 

“Fine! His name is Kyungsoo,” Jongdae huffed, slapping the back of Jongin’s neck. “You better not get close to him, okay? He’s a meanie.”

“Uh huh,” Jongin agreed, but he was barely listening. He was too busy trying to make eye contact with Kyungsoo, who could’ve passed for a statue on that bench.

 

 

 

Despite Jongdae’s multiple warnings and his desperate, “Nini, don’t leave me!” at recess the next day, Jongin couldn’t be stopped from wandering over to the bench. Kyungsoo was already sitting there when Jongin’s teacher had dismissed them to play. His hands were fiddling with his blue Pororo shirt and he was swinging his legs back and forth rhythmically. 

Jongin had barely gotten within two yards of Kyungsoo when he heard a very wary, “Who’s coming?”

Jongin blinked, a bit confused. What did Kyungsoo mean, who’s coming? Jongin was standing right in front of him. He decided he’d let it slide, because Jongin’s mommy told him to be nice even if people ignored you. Besides, Kyungsoo had a squeaky cute voice that made Jongin want to hug him aggressively.

Once he had seated himself on the bench, Jongin scooted closer to Kyungsoo. “I’m Jongin,” he introduced himself. “I’m five. Wanna be friends?” 

“No.” Kyungsoo didn’t look up from the point in the ground he was staring at. 

Jongin frowned—he wasn’t used to getting rejected so blatantly. “Why not?” 

“No.” 

Jongin mustered up his best set of bambi eyes and pulled his little face into a pout, hoping Kyungsoo would cave in just like his mommy normally would. Kyungsoo didn’t budge—didn’t look up from where he was staring. After five minutes of silence, Jongin admitted defeat and nearly cried because it was the first time his bambi eyes had ever failed to work.

“I know you’re still there,” Kyungsoo said all of a sudden. 

“Yeah!” Jongin bounced up excitedly. “Do you wanna be friends?” 

“Shut up. Go away,” Kyungsoo told him. Jongin barely had time to process the rejection this time around before Kyungsoo’s chubby hands shot out and Jongin’s bum landed with a thump on the ground.

(“I told you so,” Jongdae taunted him after recess while Jongin whimpered and rubbed his sore bum.)

 

 

 

 

Jongin wasn’t the type to give up that quickly. 

The next day, he was at Kyungsoo’s bench again, this time asking the boy if he wanted to walk around the playground with him. Kyungsoo said no before promptly shoving him off the bench. The day after that, Jongin came up to Kyungsoo again, this time requesting to pick flowers with him. Kyungsoo told him to shut up. The day after that, Jongin returned and sat next to Kyungsoo again, asking if he wanted to join his friends in a game of tag. Kyungsoo told him to go away and leave him alone. 

The pattern continued for weeks—Jongin would sit next to Kyungsoo, ask to spend time with him, and leave with a slightly bruised ego when Kyungsoo rejected him. Jongdae laughed at Jongin at first, but eventually, he became genuinely concerned for his best friend Nini. 

“You should stop, Nini,” Jongdae informed his friend on one of their playdates. “If he doesn’t want to be friends with you then it’s his fault, okay? He’s a meanie.” 

“No, Kyungsoo’s not a meanie. He’s just lonely,” Jongin said, his fingers buried deep in the sandbox. Their parents had taken them to the park, and Jongdae had decided that they were going to build a sandcastle. They were currently working on the moat that had to surround the whole castle. 

“Yeah, but what if he wants to be lonely?” Jongdae asked.

“Jongdae, nobody wants to be lonely,” Jongin huffed. “What if someone locked you up in a room all by yourself and you had nobody to talk to and nobody wanted to build sandcastles with you and you just sat by yourself and did nothing all day long? How would that feel?” 

“Bad,” conceded Jongdae. “But Kyungsoo’s a meanie.” 

“Jongdae, I said Kyungsoo’s not a meanie!” 

“Okay, fine!”

 

 

 

 

“Hey, you. Jongin.” 

Jongin perked up immediately. Over the course of the past couple of weeks, Jongin had probably introduced himself a million times (probably because Kyungsoo couldn’t be bothered to care about him), so he was excited that Kyungsoo had remembered his name.

“Yeah, Kyungsoo?” 

“Why do you come over here every day?” 

“Because I want to be friends with you,” Jongin answered earnestly, scooting closer to the boy. Kyungsoo reached out to shove him off the bench, but Jongin already knew he would, so he managed to move out of the way before those chubby hands could touch him.

“Well, I don’t wanna be friends.” 

“You like being lonely, Soo?” 

“Don’t call me Soo.” 

“Nobody likes being lonely, Soo.”

 

 

 

 

“Jongin, you’re wearing your Pororo shirt today,” his mother commented as Jongin popped out from his room before school. “You never wear it.” 

“I like it,” Jongin announced, smoothing the orange shirt down proudly. “Mama, my best friend always wears Pororo, so I’m going to match with him today.”

“If you say so,” his mother laughed, handing him a slice of toast smeared with strawberry jam. “Let’s get you to school quickly so you can show him, okay?”

“Okay!” 

Kyungsoo didn’t say anything about Jongin’s Pororo shirt when Jongin came up to him at recess, but Jongin didn’t take it personally. Kyungsoo’s Pororo shirt was also orange that day, so that probably meant he liked the color orange. 

 

 

 

“Soo!” 

“What are you going to ask today?” 

“Umm...let’s see. Do you want to race each other across the playground?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because I can’t. Go away, Jongin.” 

“Oh.” 

 

 

 

“Kyungsoo’s always got this blank look in his eyes,” Jongin commented while he and Chanyeol built lego cars inside the classroom. 

It was raining today, which meant that all classes had indoor recess. Kyungsoo was in a different class, and since he wasn’t allowed to leave the classroom unless he needed to use the bathroom, Jongin couldn’t go to see him. It was a bit disappointing, because Jongin liked going to see Kyungsoo, but he reluctantly decided that building cars with Chanyeol wasn’t all that bad either. Besides, his mommy told him that he should smile and have fun, rather than moping around for no reason and making everyone else worry about him. 

Chanyeol attached a little rubber tire to his car. “Maybe because Kyungsoo’s dead inside,” he said solemnly. 

“What’s a dead inside?” 

“I don’t know. Yoora says she’s dead inside all the time,” Chanyeol said proudly. Yoora was Chanyeol’s hormonal teenage sister in middle school and possibly his biggest role model after Rilakkuma.

“Oh.” 

Jongin didn’t think that Kyungsoo was dead inside. If he was dead inside, then he would be a zombie and would’ve probably eaten Jongin by now, right?

 

 

 

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin said, “why won’t you ever make eye contact with me?” 

“What do you mean?” Kyungsoo snapped. 

Today, Jongin had decided that he didn’t just want to sit with Kyungsoo at recess, he also wanted to eat lunch with him. He’d carried his lunchbox all the way from his classroom to Kyungsoo’s dumb bench fifty miles away from civilization. Kyungsoo had already been sitting there and eating, and he’d finished his sandwich by the time Jongin had even opened his lunchbox. Now, his hands were folded in his lap and they were sitting in silence, save for Jongin’s questions every couple of minutes.

“Well,” Jongin said, the baby carrots between his teeth making a crunchy sound, “I always look at your eyes, but you never look back. Why won’t you look at me in the eyes?” 

“Because I can’t,” came Kyungsoo’s straightforward reply. 

“Why not? Is it because I’m ugly?” 

“I don’t even know what you look like, Jongin.” 

Jongin blinked. Hadn’t Kyungsoo been looking at him for the all the past months they’d spent together? Surely he would know about Jongin’s brown eyes, ruffled bangs, and the tanned skin other kids always teased him for. Surely he’d know about the orange Pororo shirt Jongin’s mother had to wash almost everyday because Jongin always wanted to match with Kyungsoo. 

“Kyungsoo, is it because I’m ugly?” Jongin asked, tearing up. “Is that why you won’t stare at me?”

“It’s not. I just don’t know what you look like,” Kyungsoo snapped. “Just shut up and eat your lunch, Jongin!” 

“Is it because I’m ugly?” 

“Jongin, just shut up.”

“Kyungsoo, I’m not ugly, right?”

“Shut up, Jongin,” Kyungsoo cried, exasperated with the other boy. “You’re not ugly. You’re the cutest boy in the whole school, okay?” 

“You promise?”

“I promise.” 

Satisfied with Kyungsoo’s answer, Jongin scooted closer to him. Kyungsoo didn’t push him away any longer—he knew Jongin wouldn’t go away anyway, so he just put his hand on the bench between them so that Jongin couldn’t move any further.

Jongin offered a baby carrot to Kyungsoo, holding it up in front of him to take, but Kyungsoo just stared blankly ahead of him, at something that wasn’t the carrot. Jongin sighed. What was wrong with Kyungsoo? All he ever did was stare at the wrong things and the wrong places, as if he were purposely trying not to look where Jongin wanted him to. 

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin piped up, breaking the comfortable silence that had just settled between them.

“Yeah?” 

“Do you like carrots?” 

Kyungsoo paused, as if contemplating, before he nodded slowly. “Yeah.” 

“Okay, well, open your mouth, dummy!” 

Kyungsoo opened his mouth to reply that he wasn’t a dummy, but he didn’t get the chance to. Jongin had shoved the baby carrot into his mouth rather aggressively and was instructing him to chew.

“Kyungsoo?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Your eyes are really pretty. But you should look at me and not at the floor.” 

“My eyes aren’t pretty,” Kyungsoo mumbled. 

“I like your eyes.” 

“I hate my eyes.” 

“Why? Why do you hate them? They’re pretty.” 

Kyungsoo didn’t respond, so Jongin didn’t push it any further. Instead, he offered to shove another baby carrot down Kyungsoo’s throat, and Kyungsoo let him. 

 

 

 

Jongin was nearly out of the classroom at recess when he was pulled back inside by a pair of grubby hands. A bit surprised, he turned around to see Jongdae looking at him with sad puppy eyes. 

“You never play with us anymore,” Jongdae sniffed sadly. “Will you play with us today?” 

“Can’t. I gotta talk to Kyungsoo,” Jongin replied right away. 

Jongdae tugged on Jongin’s shirt. “C’mon, please? Just invite Kyungsoo to come play with us. You can’t leave us forever, you know! I’m your friend too.”

Jongin had stopped asking Kyungsoo to do things with him recently, since Kyungsoo always refused to play with him. Kyungsoo always sounded irritated when Jongin wanted to pick flowers with him or play tag, so he’d stopped making such requests and had decided to sit with Kyungsoo in silence during recess. Kyungsoo had started warming up to Jongin a bit after Jongin stopped, so he was reluctant to start asking for things again, but Jongdae looked so sad that Jongin decided he’d just do it. 

Like he’d been expecting, Kyungsoo said no immediately. Jongin knew he should’ve just taken the rejection, but he didn’t want to run off playing with his friends while Kyungsoo continued to sit alone, so he asked again if Kyungsoo would like to play tag with Jongdae and the rest of them. 

“No,” Kyungsoo repeated, “No, Jongin! I don’t want to.” 

“Why not, Kyungsoo?” Jongin asked, frowning. “Why won’t you ever play with us? What’s so bad about making friends? You say you can’t do this and you can’t do that, but it’s really just because you don’t want to, right?” 

“No, it’s not that.” Kyungsoo’s voice raised just a little bit, and Jongin had to push the uncomfortable feeling rising up his throat back into his tummy. 

“Then what is it? Do you like being lonely, Kyungsoo?” 

“I don’t.” 

“Then just play with us! Why is it so hard for you to do anything?” 

“Because I can’t!” Kyungsoo shouted, slapping the bench. Jongin started backing away. “I can’t, Jongin. I can’t do anything! I can’t play tag and I can’t pick flowers and I can’t race you across the playground, because I’m blind! I can’t be a good friend, because I’m blind!” 

“What’s a blind?” 

“You’re stupid. I hate you!” Kyungsoo shrieked. “Just leave me alone, Jongin. I can’t be friends with you. I can’t play with you! I’m blind!” 

Jongin’s lower lip was trembling. Kyungsoo’s screaming had gotten so loud that most of the kids playing had paused their activities to stare, curious about what was going on. Jongin felt embarrassed—he just wanted to crawl into a corner. He didn’t know what a blind was. Why was Kyungsoo getting so mad at him?

Apparently, Kyungsoo wanted to hide in a corner too, because all of a sudden, he slid off the bench. It was the first time Jongin had ever seen him stand up. Kyungsoo’s chest was heaving in anger and his little cheeks were red. Jongin was waiting for Kyungsoo to burst off running, but the boy didn’t. He did something rather strange instead—he fumbled around on the ground until he picked up what looked like a white stick. Kyungsoo started walking away from Jongin, using the stick to poke and prod at things in his way.

Jongin cried.

What was that stick even for, anyway? 

 

 

 

“Mama, what’s a blind?” Jongin asked when he got home and his mother was passing him a plate of mini butter cookies and a glass of milk. 

“A blind?” His mother laughed, patting him on the head. “Why are you asking?” 

“My friend yelled at me today when I asked him to play with everyone else. He said he couldn’t because he was a blind,” Jongin said quietly, his eyes watering when he remembered how Kyungsoo had shouted at him so angrily. “And then...he went away with a white stick.”

“Oh, I understand now.” Jongin’s mommy threaded her fingers through his hair gently. “I know why your friend got mad at you.” 

“But what’s a blind?” 

“A blind person is someone who can’t see,” his mommy explained. “Jongin, your friend can’t see anything. That’s why he can’t play with you. He uses the white stick to make sure he doesn’t crash into anything when he’s walking.” 

“That’s a blind?” 

“Yes, that is, Jongin.” 

“Oh…” 

Jongin still didn’t quite understand, so he asked his mother again. She told him to close his eyes and then put his hands over them so that all he could see was black, and then she explained how that was all Kyungsoo ever saw. Just black, no color. 

Jongin cried. 

He understood now—he understood why Kyungsoo was always sitting on that bench by himself, and why he was always so lonely. He couldn’t see anything, so he couldn’t play with anyone else. It wasn’t his fault he was lonely all the time—it was just because nobody could play with him. He couldn’t see anything, so that was why he didn’t know what Jongin looked like, or that Jongin wore the orange Pororo shirt almost everyday so he could match with Kyungsoo. It wasn’t because Jongin was ugly so he wouldn’t look at him.

Kyungsoo just couldn’t see. 

 

 

 

Jongin avoided Kyungsoo for nearly a week straight after he’d yelled at him. It was partially because he was scared to face Kyungsoo again, and partially because he felt bad now that he knew what a blind was. 

At first, Jongdae and Chanyeol let Jongin mope around and gave him their snacks at school to make him feel better, but nothing seemed to work. Jongin’s eyes were constantly drifting away towards that bench fifty miles away from civilization where Kyungsoo sat. Eventually, Jongdae got upset and told Jongin that if he didn’t talk to Kyungsoo, then they couldn’t be friends anymore. 

Jongin didn’t want that. He liked Jongdae, so he said he would talk to Kyungsoo. 

Kyungsoo sat on the bench like always. At first, Jongin wasn’t sure if he wanted to approach the boy, but he decided he needed to fix things and ran towards Kyungsoo before his confidence started disappearing. 

Kyungsoo was wearing a yellow Pororo shirt. His hands were folded in his lap, and he was staring soullessly ahead at nothing. “What do you want?” he asked. 

Jongin paused, watching Kyungsoo to see if he was going to frown or glare. When Kyungsoo’s facial expression remained blank, Jongin slid onto the bench and shimmied as close up as he could to Kyungsoo. He grabbed one of Kyungsoo’s hands and intertwined their fingers, ignoring the boy’s protesting and squirming.  
“Kyungsoo?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” 

“I didn’t know you were a blind,” Jongin said softly. “I understand why you can’t play with us. It’s not because you like being lonely.” 

Kyungsoo nodded, humming. A comfortable silence lapsed over them, and they sat there for the next few minutes, wiggling their entwined fingers around and swinging their legs back and forth. 

“Jongin.” 

“Yeah?” 

“You’re not going to go away?” Kyungsoo asked. 

“Wait, why would I go away?” 

“Because I can’t play with you,” Kyungsoo said matter-of-factly. “You’re not going to be friends with me if I can’t play with you.”

Jongin let go of Kyungsoo’s hand and grabbed his cheeks, pinching them so hard that Kyungsoo yelped in pain. “You dummy! I’m not going to leave just because you’re a blind. We’re still friends!” 

“Really?” 

“Yes, so shut up!” Jongin huffed, releasing Kyungsoo’s cheeks. Immediately, Kyungsoo’s hands flew up to his cherry-red cheeks and he started patting them gingerly to ease the pain. Jongin could feel a huge grin forming on his face. 

“If you’re going to be my friend,” Kyungsoo started, “then you should tell me what the playground looks like.” 

“Because you can’t see it?” 

“Yeah. Tell me about the clouds, and the trees and the grass.” Kyungsoo’s voice was surprisingly shy. It made Jongin want to aggressively hug him.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Jongin agreed, and then he grabbed Kyungsoo’s round head and wrapped his arms around it lovingly. “Since we’re friends.” 

Jongin held Kyungsoo’s hand for the rest of recess, describing what the clouds looked like, all fluffy and white in the brilliant blue sky. He told Kyungsoo about the playground and how there was a swing set and two ugly yellow slides, and how there were kids swinging around on the monkey bars and kids building sandcastles in the sandbox. He told Kyungsoo about the trees and how they had really big, really brown trunks. 

As recess ended and they walked back to their classrooms together, Kyungsoo smiled. It was the first time Jongin had ever seen Kyungsoo smile. 

Jongin told Kyungsoo his smile was even prettier than his eyes. 

 

 

 

“Jongdae! Chanyeol! This is Kyungsoo. Let’s all be friends, okay?” 

“Nice to meet you guys…” 

“We can’t be friends! This is the kid who pushed me off the bench.” 

“It’s true, I was the bench.”


End file.
